Mandarin M3® - Circulation
Facilitate Your Front-Desk Operations with Our Powerful Yet Easy-to-Use
Circulation Module
M3 allows you to view patron, item and transaction
information in a three pane split screen visible during loan, return,
renewal, or reserve activities. Customize the data in each pane to optimize
your workflow, and even display patron photos as well as item images
such as book jackets.

M3 Circulations's efficient design puts frequent circulation activities
just a few clicks away. One-click functionality for loans, returns,
reserves, renewals, status review, bookings, and fine processing means
shorter lines and fewer personnel at the front desk. Enable Self Check
or Self Return, and expand your patron offerings without impact on library
staff.
Circulation Features
- Fully customizable screens
- Multilingual interface (English, Spanish, French)
- Ability to link images to patrons and items
- Standard or customized patron and item messages
- Immediate update and display of item and patron status
- Self-service check-in/check-out options
- Backdating check-in and override capabilities available to authorized
users
- Flexible calendar interface, including fixed and repeated closed days
for holidays
- Fast multiple-item batch return
- On-the-fly transaction processing
- In-house circulation to track usage within the library
- Hourly loan capability
- Special reserve collection management
- Library transaction reports
- Circulation Desk receipt printing for patrons
- Quick return functionality via a single barcode scan
- Sound/voice alert options
- OPAC and Cataloging search access from Circulation
- Ability to assign items to collections with specific due date parameters
with Group Editor
- Ability to set patron and staff circulation rights and authorization
levels with Group Editor
Textbook Management
Circulation can be used to store and manage textbook collections.
Textbook data such as title, author, and publication can be entered
as a bibliographic record and linked to any number of copies. Barcodes
can be attached to each copy and scanned when textbooks are loaned or
returned by students or staff. You can assign loan periods by semester,
day, week, month, year, or hour. A special reserve group can be created
for the collection, available for loan to group members only. You can
assign to this group desired loan lengths and, if needed, an expiration
date, at which point textbooks and other materials return to the regular
collection.
Inventory provides another method for tracking missing textbooks kept
in storage or in off-site collections such as classrooms. In addition,
reports can be run based on homeroom, student, teacher, subject, and
so on. and lists of items not returned can be produced for teaching
staff.
Reports
- Frequently used reports and tracking features integrated into the
Circulation module, directly available to librarians from the same screen
as other circulation tasks
- Ability to run transaction for the entire library, by patron or
by item
- Ability to print receipts and statistics for Today's Transactions,
Today's Loans, and Today's Returns
- An extensive number of circulation reports preloaded in the ReportTool
module, accessing current M3 Circulation transaction data when run

Tracking
- Ability to track in-house usage statistics with the In-House Circulation
function
- Ability to quickly and easily upload transactions from portable
scanners directly into circulation for off-site (such as bookmobile)
and emergency backup support
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Here's What's New in Version 1.7 SP1
( Current Service and Update Agreement Subscribers Only. Includes Service Pack 2 and Service Pack 3 )
Mandarin M3® is known for its powerful, sophisticated yet simple-to-use features – and now there’s more of the same! If you purchased M3 version 1.6 (or earlier) or if you downloaded a free version of M3 (version 1.6 or earlier), now is the time to upgrade to version 1.7 SP1.
Circulation
- The Check Holdings for Reserves feature has been corrected. This feature allows you to create holds for all newly-added and available items, where all pre-existing holdings were on loan and reserved.
- If the default loan period extends beyond a global recall date, the global recall date is always used as the due date, even if there is a session-based due date that is sooner than the recall date.
- When you search for an item and click the barcode in the results list, the item loads in the item pane, but the transaction does not process.
- On Windows Vista, you can search using Search Dialog and select the item (or patron) to load into Circulation.
- Windows 2003 (including XP x64) and Windows Vista users no longer receive the “Initialization Failed” dialog during start up.
- Various scenarios involving adjusting or overriding bookings when loaning items have been addressed: Adjusted loan overlaps first day of booking; first-created, not first-up booking removed by loan override; more than one booking not handled when a loan overrides more than one booking.
- If an overdue item is renewed during the Grace Period, the Overdue Item block message is no longer displayed.
- When a Booking is canceled, Circulation no longer sends out the Item Hold email.
- Cancel override when doing batch processes (renewal) does not stop the transaction from processing on the first item that triggers the override. Some holds may not appear under Item Transactions, but they do show up under Patron Transactions.
- When there are multiple reserves, skipping the patron with the hold and loaning the item to another patron causes the hold to be lost.
Inventory
- Inventory now operates consistently on multiple-core CPU’s.
( Does Not Include Service Pack 2 or Service Pack 3 )
This release introduces new features in the M3 Core modules as
well as several innovative optional modules, including Syndetic Solutions,
MARC Magician integrated with M3 Cataloging, and M3 Pocket Module.
New M3 Core module features are outlined below.
Cataloging
- Ability to import pictures and to update patron and item records
with these pictures.
- Ability to create multiple holdings for a bibliographic record at
one time.
- When sorting, non-filing characters ("the", "a",
and so on) are now ignored.
- When creating a new holding for an existing bibliographic record,
the prefix (852#k) is now copied into the new holding record.
- Ability to tag a block of records in the main Cataloging window
by selecting the first record and pressing SHIFT while selecting the
last record; this tags all records in between.
- The removal of empty fields after saving a record is now optional.
Windows® OPAC
- Ability to view book cover images.
- Ability to link to Syndetics Solutions, which allows patrons to
view summaries, reviews, and other content data for items in your
collection. It also provides cover images for thousands of items.
This is available on a subscription basis for an additional charge.
- Ability to customize your library name on the main window.br />
- Ability to save and print holdings data from the Search Results
and Bookbag windows.
- Ability to view holdings information in the Bookbag Details window.
- In libraries with union databases, local holdings are indicated
by a star-shaped Availability and Tagging check box.
Circulation
- New shortcut toolbar on the main window contains buttons for commonly-
used functions. This might ship off by default.
- Ability to renew all or return all transactions in the Transactions
pane is available from a transaction menu.
- Ability to apply refunds or enter additional fines in the Payment
window.
- Ability to search for a patron or item from the main window by typing
keywords in the Barcode box.
- The display of override messages in Self-Check mode is now optional.
If they are disabled, the only message that will display is if the
item is non- circulating.
- Ability to disable the History tab in the Circulation Options dialog
box.
- Ability to enable a message to display when an item is being placed
on hold instead of reserve.
- A warning message displays when an item that is assigned to a special
reserve group is returned.
- If a scanned barcode is invalid, three distinct beeps will sound.
- When an item is recorded as lost, the fine assigned will be the
item price indicated in field 852#9. If no price exists, the fine
will be the maximum fine as set in Group Editor.
Miscellaneous
- The Search dialog box used in Cataloging, Circulation, and Group
Editor is now able to handle special characters, such as ampersands
(&).
- Ability to change the font size and type in the record editor (visible
in Cataloging and Circulation) by modifying the Default Grid Font
entry in the ActiveMarcEdit.ini file. The default font setting is
8 pt MS Sans Serif.
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